Authored by two passionate psychologists and educators, "Book Smart: How to Develop and Support Successful, Motivated Readers" is a how-to guide rich with stories, lessons, activities, and ideas aimed at supporting reading development and addressing the broad range of interpersonal, social, emotional, and motivational skills that can be…

D. Elkonin's thesis that thinking is much more closely related to writing than to oral speech formed the basis of our three-year formative experiment at the elementary school level. In order to test this idea, second-graders through fourth-graders were given a few assignments in which they were asked to exchange thoughts in writing with their…

This paper reports on a one-year longitudinal study that adopted a blended teaching approach based on designing and implementing an online EFL course to be used by Greek students aged 13-14 years old along their more traditional face-to-face lessons. The reason for creating a more dynamic learning environment aligned with the rest of the…

Because of the increased emphasis on standardized testing results, scores from a high-stakes, end-of-year test (Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program [TCAP] Reading Composite) were used as the standard against which scores from a group-administered, curriculum-based measure (CBM), Monitoring Instructional Responsiveness: Reading (MIR:R), were…

This article reports on a principle-based evaluation of eight dedicated extensive reading coursebooks published in mainland China and used in many universities across the country. The aim is to determine the extent to which these coursebooks reflect a core set of nine second language acquisition and extensive reading principles. Our analysis shows…

Working with middle-school students, we replicated and extended research on oral reading fluency (ORF) assessments and prompting students to read faster. Altering ORF administration procedures by instructing students to read fast caused statistically significant increases in their words correct per minute (WCPM) and errors, which was moderated by…

This paper represents some suggestions towards discourse-analytic approaches for ESL/EFL education, with the focus on identifying the textual forms which can contribute to the textual difficulty. Textual difficulty/comprehensibility, rather than being purely text-based or reader-dependent, is certainly a matter of interaction between text and…

The purpose of this study was to illustrate the use of the randomization test for single-case research designs (SCR; Kratochwill & Levin, 2010). To demonstrate the application of this approach, a systematic replication of Grünke, Wilbert, and Calder Stegemann (2013) was conducted to evaluate the effects of a story map to improve the reading…

This study examined the reading and math achievement profiles and longitudinal growth trajectories of a nationally representative sample of children ages 6 through 9 with an autism spectrum disorder. Four distinct achievement profiles were identified: higher-achieving (39%), hyperlexia (9%), hypercalculia (20%) and lower-achieving (32%). Children…

Schooling can play a role in bolstering a sense of community, but research suggests that curriculum may serve to isolate teachers and students from their rural surroundings. In this qualitative case study, we asked if the literacy curriculum and instruction supported readers to make connections to their rural setting. We analyzed curriculum…

Few studies examine specific interventions for increasing narrative text comprehension for students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, both the cognitive reading profiles common in ASD and the focus on access to complex text for all learners suggest the need for interventions to support narrative text comprehension. Using a multiple…

The purpose of the study aimed to investigate the effect of the Readers Theater (RT) training on elementary school students. In particular, changes in the students' English reading comprehension before and after the RT show, comparison of the students' responses to English learning, especially English reading, the students' opinions on the RT…

This study's hypotheses were that (a) word-problem (WP) solving is a form of text comprehension that involves language comprehension processes, working memory, and reasoning, but (b) WP solving differs from other forms of text comprehension by requiring WP-specific language comprehension as well as general language comprehension. At the start of…

The integration of knowledge during reading was tested in 1,109 secondary school students. Reading times for the second sentence in a pair (Jane's headache went away) were compared in conditions where the first sentence was either causally or temporally related to the first sentence (Jane took an aspirin vs. Jane looked for an aspirin).…

This article reviews the authors' findings regarding the electronic book's (e-book's) support of emergent reading among kindergarten-aged children at-risk for reading difficulties. All the studies involved use of educational e-books specially designed by the authors to promote literacy among young children in the 5-6 age group. The review focuses…